Deep Skin
by casperfrench
Summary: Set right after 'Skin', this is a case/relationship story; the ship being between Stella and Eve... aka STEVE! Can't you just smell the hoyay? There's a body, there's drama, excitement, kissing... ooer. Let's try it, n'est-ce pas?
1. One, 'This is a Body'

'Deep Skin'

_Right. So... I'd like to throw a Stella/Eve/Case story out there, because I love cases and I suppose I quite like Steve too... ;) Rating of... 15 at the moment, but this might go up. Need to do a little shifting of plot here, because the writers did another classic wtd "plot-drop" (think Spence cliffhanger and very sudden resolution beginning of series 6). So, although this takes place the day after 'Skin' ended, I'd like to suggest that Stella might have contracted HIV, and that Boyd is still pretty grumpy with her. _

_Disclaimer: Characters are not mine but I'll have them back by midnight. Got a flashback at the start which you should recognise – it's lifted and 'prose-ified' directly from the episode. Also, the quote is from Sappho – as it says. _

_Enjoy._

"_When I look on you a moment, then I can speak no more, but my tongue falls silent, and at once a delicate flame courses beneath my skin, and with my eyes I see nothing, and my ears hum, and a wet sweat bathes me, and a trembling seizes me all over."_

_Sappho_

_Chapter ONE – This is a body..._

"_He probably doesn't even have it, he was just trying to freak you out."_

"_I've got no way of knowing."_

"_It's so unlikely, especially with the AIDS virus." Eve was just going through the motions; saying what someone should probably say when something like this had just happened. She had washed Stella's hands, held them under the warm water, intertwined their fingers – bare skin meeting latex gloves. The blood staining Stella – marking her otherwise perfect hands had long gone, but Eve had kept washing them, gently, trying to wash the fear away as best she could. _

"_How long before I know?"_

"_It's standard procedure. You need to go down to the hospital and get a blood test..."_

_The door hissed. Eve knew by Stella's face that Boyd was standing there before she even heard his voice. She didn't bother looking at him. Unless he was planning to comfort her Stella, to absolve her of what she had done – because he had done worse so many times before, she would not accept a single thing he said. _

"_Is there any broken skin?" He asked, flatly. _

"_No." Said Eve, saving Stella the trouble of having to talk – though a small sound came from her lips anyway. _

"_What the hell did you were think you were doing." It wasn't a question. It was a demand, and Eve tightened her hold on Stella's hand, which she could feel shaking, ever so slightly. _

"_I'm sorry, he..." Stella choked out some words, Boyd's face didn't move an inch. _

"_Sorry doesn't do it. What you did was completely unacceptable." He didn't say any more, just walked out. Stella managed to wait a second after he had gone out of earshot, before the tears came and her hands shook some more. Eve felt something within her tremble, something that made her feel so small, so insignificant, so desperate. _

"_Hey hey hey... come here..." She pulled Stella close, allowed Stella to latch onto her, to feel a comforting warm body next to her own. Eve held Stella as close as she could, only wishing she could bring her even closer. "It's going to be alright..." _

"Sign here." Said the guy who had brought the body, waving a clipboard underneath Eve's nose and holding a pen out to her. Eve blinked at it for a second, before signing her name.

"Thanks," she said, using the word to help clear her throat. "Just on there, thanks." She indicated to the examining table, where the thick black body bag was carted to, placed on, and left for her to deal with. The two men left, and Eve glanced over at the bag. She couldn't even muster up a shard of excitement at the prospect of a fresh new look at an far-from-fresh old body. Her mind kept flying back to last night, to Stella, and back to last night again.

"_Let me take you home." Eve had offered, gently. She could see that Stella was about to say no – regardless of whether she wanted to or not. "Please," she said quickly. "I want to." _

_Stella had nodded, finally, and allowed Eve to take her home. She hadn't said much, and Eve wasn't about to push her. She couldn't imagine what was going through Stella's head right now, what thoughts were drumming against her skull; taunting, testing, serving up a hundred different scenarios. The waiting... must be awful. _

_Eve had followed Stella into her flat. An invitation hadn't been given, but Stella hadn't told her to go either – she had just thanked Eve for taking her home and left her door open for Eve to enter if she so wished. _

"_Who's this?" Eve had asked, picking up a photograph of Stella and a blonde girl on a beach somewhere. The photograph looked maybe five, eight years old. Stella's hair was longer, the image was slightly faded behind the glass in the frame from too long in the sunlight. Stella had glanced over Eve's shoulder, standing so near to Eve that she should have felt Eve's warmth – but Stella couldn't really feel much of anything at the moment. _

"_An ex." Said Stella, by way of explanation. Eve flicked her eyes to the other woman in the photo. Truth be told she had been looking at Stella, but now she looked closely at the other woman for the first time. Stella's ex._

"_She's beautiful." Said Eve. It sounded like a basic thing to say, but it was true – she was. _

"_Her name was Simone." Stella sighed. "I found out two years ago that she died. Cancer." She added, looking at the photo but with her eyes fixed on the frame, not on the people in it. "She lived in France. I had moved here. I didn't know until a friend told me." _

"_I'm sorry..." Said Eve, putting the photograph down quickly – in case she had disturbed something – and turning to Stella. They were standing very close to each other. They always were. _

"_I am very... very scared, Eve" whispered Stella. Her eyes were still in the direction of the photograph, but now they did seem to be looking directly at Simone, as if the still image of someone lost was a stimulus for life, for death, for everything. _

_Eve reached out. She couldn't help it. Stella seemed so frail, so broken. For the second time that day, Eve pulled Stella close, and tried to make comforting sounds to a quietly crying Stella. _

Eve snapped out of it. She had to focus on the body. It had been five minutes and she hadn't even opened the bag. She unzipped it, carefully folded back the plastic, and looked at the sorry state in front of her. Face mutilated, skin completely damaged after floating in the river Thames for a week, and the usual decomposition after three years in a grave.

Eve read the original coroner's report over and over, willing for the words to stay in. It wasn't really working, but that wasn't the point. She gave up, moving over to the small box of evidence that had come with the body. A wallet with driver's license – not that it was much use with a missing face – clothes, shoes, a bracelet. Usual items.

_Before she knew what she was doing, Eve gently kissed Stella's hair, stroking the back of her neck, holding her close. The crying slowed. Eve kept holding her, kept kissing her. Their lips somehow moved – of their own accord because it wasn't intentional – and Eve felt Stella's mouth on her own, her lips were cold and vaguely salty; Eve could taste tears as she kissed back. Maybe afterwards she would have thought there to be hundreds of thoughts rushing through her head – should I, should we, am I – but there weren't. Not a single one. _

_It was an automatic reaction, once the kiss had started so had the hands, gently, tentatively exploring – Stella's hands under Eve's shirt and caressing the small of her back, Eve's softly sliding up Stella's sides. The skin. So soft under their fingertips, the feel of another living breathing human body like nothing else in the world. _

Eve placed her hands firmly on the edge of the table in front to steady herself. She couldn't stop it, couldn't help it, couldn't make it go away so that she could just _think _for one moment.

_Eve's shirt had slipped off, fallen away just like that; Stella's own jumper soon disappearing too. How did they get there, how did they end up in that moment? Their bare arms brushed against each others, naked skin on naked skin, chests rising and falling with perfectly in-sync breaths. They were pressed deeper into each other now – now they could feel the pressure of the other's body on every part of their own. Eve, or maybe it had been Stella, gasped quietly – or maybe it was even a moan – they weren't quite sure, but all of a sudden Stella had broken away and stepped back very, very quickly. _

"_No," she had said, voice thin, cheeks flushed, heart thumping. "We don't know yet, if..." She trailed off. If what? If she had it? Eve swallowed. No, they didn't know. But what had scared Eve more than that, is that she wasn't sure if she even cared._

_- - - _

The hiss of the door made Eve jump, and she leapt back from the table she had been using to support herself. She probably looked extremely guilty, but finding her eyes latched onto Stella's as the French girl walked quickly into the lab pulling on a white lab coat made Eve forget what she was supposed to say.

"Hey..." She managed, though the words sounded foreign and not quite her own.

"Hi." Came the hurried response.

"We should talk." Garbled Eve, quickly. Stella nodded sharply, and made to open her mouth but was interrupted by the rest of the team coming noisily into the lab. Boyd and Grace were bickering, Spence was trying to get a word in. None of them noticed Stella's cheeks go pink, or that Eve dropped her pen onto the floor. She stooped to pick it up and to try and clear her vision of Stella – but the girl was embedded into Eve's memory anyway, regardless of whether she was actually visible or not. Popping back up again, Eve found the team already gathered around the table, looking at her expectantly.

"Erm. Right." She started. "This is a body." She said, simply, trying to stall for time with the obvious while she set her mind back on track. "Buried under the name and always assumed to be Helga Kuhse, German exchange student, eighteen years old, went missing June '05." She stopped for breath. Boyd wasn't looking at her. He was looking directly at Stella.

"Have you gotten the test results yet?" Asked Boyd, his voice low. Stella blinked, like a deer caught in headlights.

"Boyd..." Warned Grace, but he ignored her – showed no sign of even hearing her. Just kept looking at Stella.

"No. I don't know yet." Replied Stella, clearly as possible.

Boyd didn't reply either way, just looked back at Eve for her to continue, but she had totally lost whatever it was she had been saying. Thankfully, Spence unwittingly came to the rescue, looking down at the file in his hands.

"She washed up around docklands after a week – near the Cutty Sark." He looked down at the body. "She had id on her."

"Right, yes," said Eve, picking up where Spence left off. "Her face was mutilated, so a positive identification could never be made, but because of the driver's license in..." She leaned over to the other table, and waved the relevant plastic evidence bag, "... this wallet, the area, the time frame, it was always assumed to be Helga Kuhse. Parents were dead, no relatives, no friends. She was buried and that was the end of it."

"Until now." Said Boyd, stoically. "What's the problem?"

"Helga Kuhse walked into a police station in Hammersmith two days ago."

"So it's not her then." Commented Spence. Eve shook her head.

"How do we know it's her this time?" Asked Boyd, after a moment's pause to digest the information.

"Well, she gave information that only the real Helga Kuhse could have given. She said she had been involved with some rich sleezey bloke who had been commiting tax fraud." Boyd raised an eyebrow, Eve shrugged. "They just rang me up about a body, that's all."

"What was the cause of death, Eve?" Asked Grace, looking up from the original case summary she had been engrossed in.

"Coroner's report said strangulation, I'll run my own tests though."

"And the face was mutilated?" Prompted Grace.

"Mm, after death. Pounded and stabbed by the sounds of it. With decomp as it is I'll probably try to remove the remaining face tissue and take a look at the skull damage underneath."

Boyd nodded, and gave his orders. "You have fun with that. Grace, find this Kuhse woman, talk to her. Spence, original case files, what was this girl-" he jabbed a finger at the body, "-doing with Helga whatsit's drivers license." He made to go.

"What about me?" Asked Stella quickly. Boyd shrugged.

"Make yourself useful."

He left, Spence and Grace also on their way out. Stella pressed her lips together, frustrated.

Eve waited until the others had gone, before stepping forward and laying a hand on Stella's arm. Stella flinched in response, as if Eve had given her an electric shock.

"We need to talk, Stella."

"I have to search missing persons."

Eve, fighting every urge to lean forward and kiss her again, managed a nod. If Stella didn't want to talk now, she wasn't about to make things worse. There was probably a fair bit on Stella's mind after all.

Stella left, Eve finding it difficult not to watch her go. Alone in the lab once again, Eve leant against the table behind her, closed her eyes, and gave in to the temptations – letting her mind pull her back to last night.

"_But stay with me? Please..." Stella had pleaded. Eve had nodded, over and over, as if the first nod was never enough._

"_Of course." _

_Eve had lain beside Stella through the night, feeling blissfully comfortable one minute and hopelessly awkward the next, focusing all her energy into stroking Stella's arm gently when she heard the crying, and watching Stella's sleeping form when there was silence. In the morning she had woken up after Stella, had showered and left early to get to work via her own place for some fresh clothes. Apart from offering coffee and an almost inaudible 'thank you' just before Eve left, Stella had barely said a word._

Eve drummed her fingers on the work surface, letting out a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding, and settled into work.


	2. Two, 'News'

_Chapter TWO - _

Stella frowned. No matches. Again. Tapping her fingers against the keyboard, she tried once more using the information gathered from the original files, Eve's information, and any one remotely resembling Helga Kuhse. Shoulder length blonde hair, oval face, blue eyes – it wasn't exactly much to go on. Add the time frame, age and rough location though, and only one name would pop up. Helga Kuhse. And, as Grace was on the phone to Miss Kuhse right now, that probably wasn't her.

Stella looked back to the screen after realising she had been focusing for far too long on Eve's scrawled 'E.L.' at the bottom of the list of details they had on the body. She was determined _not _to think about Eve, and it was working. She hadn't thought about Eve until she had just started thinking about Eve – which actually wasn't really long at all.

Stella cursed (in French and under her breath) to herself when she realised she had been thinking about what Eve would have to say about this.

One last try. Stella pulled up all the missing persons from June 2005. She eliminated all males, all that didn't fit the approximate age (18-20 according to Eve), all brunettes and redheads (Eve had confirmed that their victim was definitely blonde), and all those too tall or short (Eve had – dammit...).

One match.

Helga Kuhse.

"Merde!" Exclaimed Stella, tossing down the pen she had been idly flicking around, and pushing away from her desk.

"You get anything?" Called Spence, hunched over his computer.

"No." She muttered, walking over to him. "You?"

"Not a lot. Kuhse came over as a student on a summer study program. She does ok, then drops off the map in late May. All financial activity stops and she's not seen at the uni halls she was staying in. She's reported missing 1st of June, a week later they've got a body with her id."

"Who did she come over with?"

"Three other people. I spoke to the person who runs this program; one of them dropped out right at the beginning and went home, one is Martin Heidegger – who died in a car crash in Berlin six months ago – and the last is Peter Abelard. I'm trying to locate him."

Stella nodded, went back to her desk. "I'll try and get her phone records – see if they stopped too." She picked up her phone – expecting the usual mid-morning text from Eve; 'bored...' 'how's it going?' or 'my job is sooo gross...' – but of course there were no new texts, and Stella mentally kicked herself when she remembered why. Duh.

A text would be nice though...

The human hurricane that was Peter Boyd came blasting out of his office, phone to his ear, coffee in his other hand.

"Ok son. Keep in touch – STELLA, Spence, what have you got?" He barked at them. The second he had ended the call his voice had snapped from deep and thoughtful to full blown commanding, and Stella had flinched at being on the receiving end of the transition. He always shouted her name like that, especially when she had done something.

"I'm looking up the people our DB came over with..." Said Spence. "She dropped off the map in May '05 – Stella's getting her phone records."

Boyd turned to her.

"I haven't got them yet sir, I was just about to-"

He didn't shout at her to hurry up, just waved her comments away and marched over to the coffee machine, leaving her standing there, mouth still open. She stepped quickly after him.

"I checked and re-checked missing persons. No one that matched the age, area and details that Eve gave me was reported missing in June 2005 – no one even close – except for Helga Kuhse." She said, willing for him to turn to her, to pay attention to her.

"So no one went missing in the time frame." Repeated Boyd, barely glancing at her as he moved from the coffee machine to the evidence board; Stella almost dancing around the desks in an attempt to stay in his line of sight.

"Not that was reported, no."

"Right but if you go missing, _someone,_ somewhere will report you gone." He concluded, drawing a box on the evidence board and a question mark inside it. Stella just nodded. Of course, maybe there had been no one to miss their victim – but she wasn't about to split hairs now.

Stella jumped as her mobile rang on the desk behind her. Neither Boyd nor Spence had ever seen her move so fast – she grabbed the phone, looking down at the number.

"Unknown number." She said, almost to herself – but both Boyd and Spence were listening.

"Is it the hospital?" Asked Boyd, quietly.

Stella flipped open the phone.

"Hello? ... yes..." Boyd and Spence were both silent – their eyes fixed firmly on her. Stella closed her eyes – Boyd felt his heart sink. Then Stella's eyes snapped open. "No, I do not want a free upgrade." She choked out, voice dangerously close to cracking. She hung up, stared down at the phone in her hands. She looked utterly shaken. Boyd said nothing.

Grace came out of her office, surveying the room and judging that it was just about safe to speak.

"I've rung Helga Kuhse. She's on her way in."

"Thanks, Grace..." Said Boyd. Then he turned back to Stella. Her phone was ringing again.

"Shit..." She murmured to herself. "I can't..."

Boyd swallowed. He stepped forward, arm outstretched. "Let me." He said. She handed him the phone, silently thanking him. "Hello? Yes this is her phone. ... You do? ... Ok. ... I'll tell her." He hung up, handed the phone back to Stella.

"You're fine." He said, simply.

- - -

"I'm fine?" Repeated Stella, slowly. Boyd nodded.

"Congratulations."

Stella felt a smile break out across her face. She could almost hug Boyd right now – except that, you know, he was Boyd, and that would be weird.

"Thank you." She managed to say instead.

"You want a minute?" He asked. She nodded.

"Yes please."

He nodded towards the door, and she left – feeling not only extremely grateful, but utterly relieved. She was fine, and Boyd had allowed her a smile.

Once out the door and halfway down the corridor, Stella hesitated. Where exactly was she going? The lab, obviously. She wanted to tell Eve, to see the look on her face when she told her that she was ok. That she was safe. But was that a good idea? The implications behind it... did she really want to make them? Did she really want to risk it, to say 'hey, Eve, I'm safe for sex!' Cursing in French (for the third time that morning) at the ridiculousness of it all, Stella leant against the wall.

When Boyd had told her, the first thought in her head had been to tell Eve – her first _instinct_ to run down to the lab and...

The thought – whatever it was going to be – was interrupted with the arrival of someone who could only be the real Helga Kuhse. She was walking down the corridor towards Stella, who didn't really feel like shepherding people around the building.

"It's down there, on the right." She said, before Helga Kuhse even had a chance to speak. The woman blinked, then muttered a 'thank you' and wandered onwards towards the office.

Sighing, Stella succumbed to her feet, and walked down the stairs and to the lab.

- - -

Boyd glanced at the drivers license photo of Helga Kuhse found on the victim, and studied the woman who was just being offered a seat in Grace's office. He flashed the photo at Spence, who nodded his ascent.

"Definitely her." He confirmed. Boyd nodded; the European 'fuhrungschien' could only belong to the woman who was currently alive – how their victim had gotten hold of it they didn't know.

"You think our Jane Doe stole this woman's wallet?" Boyd asked. Spence shrugged. "I mean, you slash up a face if you don't want them found – if you don't want them identified – right?"

"Sure." Said Spence, going back to his computer.

Boyd scratched his chin, watching Grace talk to Helga Kuhse.

- - -

Eve made another careful incision at the top of the brow, gently pulling back with some tweezers. The smell was unpleasant to say the least; she was grateful of the small help the white face mask gave. Hearing the door behind her, followed by tentative footsteps that could only be Stella's, Eve putting down her tools and walked through the plastic curtain, talking off her gloves and mask.

"You don't want to go in there." She promised, waving back behind her by way of explanation.

"Is it really gross?"

"Smells a little bad." Admitted Eve. "What's up?"

"The hospital rang me," started Stella. Eve looked right at her, looked right into her eyes. "I'm ok. I don't have it."

Eve felt a massive wave of relief. "Oh Stella, that's fantastic!" She was positively beaming – it made Stella smile.

"Yeah," Stella nodded. "No broken skin. You were right." She said, dropping her gaze to her hands, tracing her fingers over her knuckles. Eve stepped forward, touched Stella's hand, held it still. "It felt so horrible..." mumbled Stella, quietly. "Having in on me. One cut would have..." She stepped back suddenly – pulling her hand away from Eve and blinking quickly.

"Can we talk?" Asked Eve, gently.

Stella took a deep breath. "If we had known I was fine, we would have..." She didn't have to finish.

"Yes." Said Eve, carefully. There was no way around it. They would have, and they both knew it.

"But that's not the point, is it?" Said Stella, running her fingers through her hair, ruffling it and shooting a rueful look at Eve through a reddish haze. "The point it... should we?"


	3. Three, 'Think About It'

_Chapter THREE – Think About It_

"Helga, you were reported missing three years ago, yes?" Started Grace, in an attempt to get the ball rolling.

"Yes. I got... involved with someone, just completely left my old life. He was very insistent that I started afresh with him. My parents are dead and the rest of my family just assumed I had settled down in England."

"This is the man who was arrested recently?"

"Yes. I was young and naïve, it seemed exciting... what is all this about?"

"We found your driver's license in connection with another case." Said Grace, carefully choosing her words as she showed Helga Kuhse a photo of the drivers license. "Did you lose it, was it stolen?"

"Three years ago?" Grace nodded. "I don't really remember. When I left we were staying in a house – in West London somewhere."

"Who's we?"

"Me, the people I came here with, some other students..."

"Peter Abelard and Martin Heidegger?" Asked Grace, reading the names from the post-it note Spence had given her just a few moments earlier.

"Yes, and some others. Peter was my boyfriend at the time."

"Do you know where he is now?" Kuhse shook her head. "Can you remember any other names?"

"Um... they all came and went; I knew them by first names or nicknames only... There was a Leo... a René, um, David – I think his surname was Hume – a Jean-Paul... that's all I can remember."

"All European students? Where was the house?"

"I don't remember. I was only there for a month."

Grace couldn't really think of anything else to push the woman with. She obviously had no idea why somebody else had her wallet – or why that person had ended up floating in the Thames near the Isle of Dogs.

"Where are you going to be now, Helga?" She asked, finally.

"I'm moving back to Germany in a few days."

Grace nodded. If there was going to be anything else to ask, she had better think of it soon. Taking contact details from Helga Kuhse, Grace walked the woman out, and wandered back to the office.

- - -

Eve smiled. Stella looked so adorable – her hair all fluffed up at the front, little girl wide eyes and an almost embarrassed look on her face, hovering awkwardly in a room of evidence and dead bodies. Well, one dead body.

"I'm not about to do anything you don't want to do Stel." She said, walking forward and brushing Stella's hair neat again with her fingers. Stella stood there, enjoying the feel of Eve's fingers gently grazing the sides of her face. "So regardless of whether we _should _or not... do you want to try?"

Stella bit her lip. Yeah, she did a bit.

"We could... go out for a drink or something after work?" Suggested Eve, doing her best to come across casual.

"Can I think about it?"

"Of course."

"Ok." Stella slipped away, leaving Eve with a mouldy old face that needed excavating, and fingers that needed re-inflating. No sooner had she pulled on another pair of gloves then her mobile started having a furious beeping fit behind her.

She opened the text.

_'Ive thought about it.'_ It read. _'youre buying.'_

Eve grinned.

_'If i must'_ she replied, and got back to that face.


	4. Four, 'Fingers and Flirting'

_Chapter FOUR – Fingers and Flirting_

Stella smiled to herself as she read Eve's reply, then snapped her phone shut and tossed it back into the bag at her feet.

"Spence – where are we on the boyfriend?" Asked Boyd, marching out of his office. Spence hung up the phone he had been using, and ripped off the scrap of paper he had been scribbling on – all in one swift motion.

"He's working at a landscaping firm in Chiswick." He answered, handing the piece of paper to Boyd who pretended to read it before handing it back.

"Great, Spence, with me. Stella stay here and try and find some of these other people Helga Kuhse mentioned – one of them must have _some _idea why our dead body ended up with Kuhse's id. Oh-" he added, coming back through the doors he had just banged his way out of, almost running over poor Spence on the way "-and tell Eve to hurry up with that face and _run some dental records_!"

"Have fun..." Called Grace – softly and slightly sardonically – after them.

- - -

Eve tossed her unopened cigarette packet into the bin, and focused all her attention on rebuilding their Jane Doe's dental structure. It was proving very, very difficult and she was getting very, very frustrated.

Sighing and chucking down her scalpel with perhaps more force than is safe to do so with such a sharp pointy knife, she crossed the room to the finger she had removed from the body in an attempt to get some fingerprints. The lone index finger was bubbling away in a jar of a very dilute acid, and with any luck the first few layers of damaged and battered skin would become soft enough to remove without disrupting the fingerprint patterns underneath.

After a moment's thought about whether it was worth taking off her lab coat, putting it back on and so on and so forth, she picked up the phone and hit the speed dial for the office.

- - -

"No... Hume. H-U-M-E. Yep." Stella was trying to talk to someone with any scrap of sense who could help her track down some of these people. Any financial records, any information from customs or immigration – and she was just getting the run-around at every turn. "... You've got nothing? He was a foreign exchange – no? You don't? Right." She slammed the phone down. Grace, sat at the table in the middle with a (currently blank) pad of paper, raised her head.

"Nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing. You would think these people left a trace, somewhere."

"Well, they were students or tourists – or both, they were probably poor and preoccupied... or both!" The phone next to her rang, she picked it up as Stella crossed the room to get some coffee.

"... Ok, thanks Eve."

Stella's ears pricked up, and she did her best to just raise half an eyebrow inquisitively as Grace hung up.

"That was Eve. She wants a hand in the lab-"

"I'll go!" Said Stella, a little too quickly.

"Fine." Said Grace – more to herself than anything – as Stella left the room, sharpish. "...Right." She said, looking back down at her pad. "Helga..."

- - -

"Peter Abelard?" Barked Boyd at the man who was bending over a desk filling out an invoice.

"Who's asking?" Came the short reply. Boyd took out his badge and held it right under the guy's nose.

"Police."

That made him look up. Jet black untidy hair, small eyes, a slight sneer in the mouth. Boyd instantly disliked him.

"What is it?" Now he looked worried. Good.

"You knew Helga Kuhse, yes?" Said Boyd. "She was your girlfriend, you came over for a student thing three years ago, yes?"

"Yes. It was an opportunity to see the UK, learn some new things."

"And you liked it so much you stayed behind, right?" Snapped Boyd, feeling highly impatient.

"Yeah, I have some family here, and my English was good, so I sorted my papers and stayed to work – everything's in order, you can check with-"

"We're not here about your papers." Reassured Spence.

"We're here, Mr Abelard..." Said Boyd, slowly and clearly. "...About Helga Kuhse."

- - -

"You wanted some help, doctor Lockhart?" Smiled Stella, pulling on a lab coat and sashaying up to Eve in the lab.

"Yes please, DC Goodman..." Returned Eve, indicating to the glass beaker with the finger still bubbling away inside. "Not my favourite place for a woman's finger..." She added, shooting a look at Stella, who laughed openly and winked – actually winked – at Eve. Eve smiled back, feeling instantly elated, not to mention a little bit wicked – and the best kind at that.

"Did you want me here to make highly inappropriate sexual comments or do you actually need help?" Asked Stella, mock 'serious' tone as she leant her arms on the table, body a little nearer to Eve's than it needed to be, her legs brushing against Eve's though they had no reason to.

"Actually I need you to hold the finger still while I use both hands to pull back layers of skin." Admitted Eve. Stella's face dropped slightly. "Sorry." She added.

Stella shrugged, smirked. "You'll have to make it up to me later..."

- - -

"She was my girlfriend, yes. We had been together about six months before coming here." Abelard had finally dropped the act and was talking to Boyd and Spence – but it wasn't enough and Detective Superintendent Boyd was getting impatient, not to mention that the whole landscaping office stank of old sandwiches and stale tea.

"So, then what?" Spence prompted.

"I met a guy-"

"Name?" Snapped Boyd.

"Michel Foucault."

"German?" Boyd, again interrupting.

"Yeah-"

"Student?"

"No – older, he'd been here a few years. Him and his girl – Hannah something – they stayed at this house-"

"In west London?" Interrupted Spence, a second before Boyd could open his mouth to make the exact same point.

"Yes. It was empty, a squat."

"Ah..." Said Boyd slowly. "So it was a squat... Helga didn't mention that..."

"Helga? She's alive?" Asked Abelard, suddenly.

Boyd blinked, wrinkled his nose at the smell. "Yeah. Forgot to mention."

"But they found a body..."

"Not her. Tell me more about Michel."

"Well, he took us to this house, and we spent a month drinking and... um..."

"Taking drugs?" Supplied Spence.

"We're not interested in the drugs." Said Boyd calmly; he could see Abelard's eyes flicker – nervous, not to mention thoroughly caught.

"Michel he... had his connections." Admitted Abelard.

"Mr Abelard," started Boyd, "we found Helga Kuhse's wallet on another body. Any idea how that could have happened?"

"Well, if she lost it while we were in that house anyone could have taken it. People just came and went."

"But if you were her boyfriend... presumably she would have told you if her wallet had gone missing. I mean it's a pretty important thing to lose." Abelard said nothing, just looked down at his feet. Boyd stared at him. "Right?"

"Towards the end she... well, she suddenly went off me. Disappeared for a day at a time. Said she wasn't into me any more."

"So you were pretty upset..?" Suggested Boyd. Abelard looked up at him oddly, a frown on his face.

"More worried about her than anything. I mean, she just suddenly changed. No reason. And then she left, after a few days I reported her missing. I was devastated when they found her... or, not her... who was it?" He asked – the realisation that there was now an unidentified dead girl that was not Helga Kuhse out there. "The body they found..."

"That's what we're trying to find out. We're going to need as many details as you can remember about all of the women in that house. And a DNA sample. And fingerprints." Said Boyd, adding to the list. "Can you do that?" Abelard nodded. "Good. Spence, get all that from him." He ordered, walking out. He needed some air; the rancid sandwich smell was making him want a fresh baguette – the stale tea a nice strong coffee.

- - -

"Grace Foley" Said Grace, answering the phone.

"It's me." Replied Boyd. "You get anywhere?"

"Stella's in the lab doing something with Eve, I'm trying to work on this connection between Helga Kuhse and our poor dead girl. You know, there must be something tying them together, some link..." Mused Grace, leaning back in her chair.

"Yeah, they probably both squatted at this house in West London."

"Squatted?"

"Yes Grace, squatted. What's the time?"

"It's... almost six."

"We'll be home soon. Dear." He added, as an afterthought.

"I can hardly wait." Replied Grace, keeping her voice dry but smiling nonetheless as she put the phone down.


	5. Five, 'Just Coffee'

_Chapter FIVE – Just Coffee_

"Do you have any idea how foul this is?" Asked Stella, as Eve edged one side of her tweezers under the final bit of rank, rotten skin that was keeping her from an otherwise usable fingerprint. "You have a lot of making up to do." She added, trying to hold the rancid finger as lightly as possible, by the mangled top and neatly trimmed end, as instructed by Eve.

Focusing entirely on gently peeling off that last bit of skin, Eve made a non-committal murmur, smiling as the layer of skin that came off, revealing what she had been after all this time.

"Done?" Stella asked quickly. Eve nodded, placing the skin in the Petri dish that had been collecting all such 'samples' and gently taking the finger from Stella, who seemed quite glad to be rid of it. Pressing the finger to an ink pad, she took the print, then slipped it into the scanner – as behind her Stella pulled off the latex gloves she had been wearing and shuddered a few times. Somehow, holding a cold dead finger still while the layers of skin were systematically and carefully pulled off it was not going to be one of the better memories she had of the lab.

"Done!" Said Eve happily. "Now we wait." She pulled off her own gloves, dropping them neatly onto the table and turning to Stella. "How can I ever thank you?"

Her tone left no mystery as to how that should be answered. Stella; a smile playing about her lips, a glint in her eyes as she stepped forwards, placed her hands softly on either side of Eve's face, cupping her jaw bone gently as she leant in to kiss her, slowly, deliberately.

Eve let herself get caught up in the kiss, allowed Stella's lips to fix themselves to hers. She enjoyed the sensation for a while, before changing the pace – faster, harder. Turning Stella around, Eve trapped the French girl between the table and her own body; Stella's hands moving down to Eve's waist, Eve's own hands unbuttoning Stella's lab coat.

Stella pulled away for breath; she was laughing softly. It was infectious, Eve couldn't help but laugh too.

"There's a dead body right over there, and a... a _finger_ really near me, and you're _kissing_ me?" Laughed Stella, a hint of pretend outrage in her voice.

"Um, you started it..." Pointed out Eve. "But if you don't want to... I still owe you a drink later remember?"

"Oh, so now you're planning to get me drunk and take advantage of me?" Stella murmured into Eve's ear, leaning in to resume the kiss. "I don't think so..."

- - -

"...Yeah but I'm saying her wallet could have been stolen any time, not just at the house." Said Spence, as he walked with Boyd through the CCHQ corridors back to the office. Grace could hear Boyd's sharp heavy footsteps, Spence's regular ones. She stopped what she was doing to listen.

"Right but if our girl was a pickpocket or a thief she would have had more than one wallet unless she wasn't a very good one-Grace!" He said, walking in to the room, Spence right behind him.

"What if she just found the wallet?" Suggested Spence, Boyd ignored him.

"Where's Stella?" He asked, looking around for his coffee mug.

"In the lab, with Eve." Replied Grace. "What were you saying Spence?"

"What if our Jane Doe and Helga Kuhse aren't connected. It's just coincidence."

"Yeah but it's the only thing we've got to go on – Grace, why do you think Helga Kuhse didn't tell you about the house, the squat?" Said Boyd, his back to Grace as he wrote 'HOUSE' on the evidence board and drew a box around it, adding a roof as an afterthought.

"Maybe she was embarrassed?" Offered Grace. "Or didn't want to get into trouble?"

"She's in trouble already for renewing her student visa when she wasn't studying – I checked with the passport office." Said Spence, sitting down.

"Yeah but she told the police about this... this tax fraud man – what have we got on him – so she'll have made a deal..." Boyd sighed, looking at his artistically-challenged house on the board. "Where is this house?"

"You want me to follow up on the house?" Said Spence, guessing what was coming.

"Yes... but first, let's go see what Eve's found – come on! Motivation! Come on!" Boyd was _bored_. He wanted some leads and he wanted them now. "Lab! Let's go!"

- - -

Stella and Eve leapt away from each other as they both realised in the same instant that the voices increasing in volume outside the lab could only mean one thing – that they were about to be interrupted. They were on the floor behind one of the tables, so not directly visible – yet – but Stella's lab coat was in a crumpled heap on the floor where they had previously been standing, and Eve wasn't exactly sure where her shirt was.

"Shit shit shit!" She cursed, scrambling to her feet as she pulled on her lab coat and frantically did it up. Shirt or no shirt – the lab coat buttoned up fairly high, it would have to do. A second later, Stella popped up next to her – having yanked her own lab coat towards her by the sleeve and gotten it on – now brushing her fingers through her hair – hastily trying to alleviate that 'just-fucked' – rather – 'just-about-to-get-fucked-before-you-interrupted' look.

The lab door hissed open, and Boyd, Spence and Grace all wandered in. Stella and Eve did their best to fix blank expressions on their faces, but Boyd and Spence were deep in conversation (or argument), and Grace seemed to be keeping amused by watching them.

"Yes, Spence" said Boyd loudly over whatever Spence was suggesting. "Are we interrupting?" He asked Stella and Eve (not that he really cared what the answer was). They both shook their heads. "Well, good! Eve, what do you have for us?"

"Um... yeah, right..." Said Eve, trying to remember what she had been doing before what she had started doing had been... well, Stella. "I removed one of the victim's fingers-"

"One of her fingers?" Repeated Boyd.

"Yes, one of her fingers. Anyway, I boiled it down, removed the skin and I'm just running..." she said, moving over to the computer "... her prints." She stood in front of the computer, Boyd and Spence looking over either of her shoulders. Behind them, Stella watched in horror as Grace picked up Eve's shirt, which had wrapped itself around her heel. Grace picked up the shirt, took one look at it, looked at Eve, and finally at Stella, who silently begged her not to say anything.

Grace raised one eyebrow, a bemused expression crossing her face, as she finally decided it wasn't worth it. Boyd turned round, and Grace whipped the shirt behind her back.

"What?" He asked.

"Hm?" Grace looked at him, as if she had no idea what he was talking about.

"What's behind-"

"Oh!" Shouted Eve, suddenly, diverting Boyd's attention back to her and the computer. "I've got a match!" She read from the screen; "our victim's finger prints were found at the scene of a small house fire... on several heroine needles."

Boyd flinched, and Eve silently kicked herself for reading that bit out loud.

He cleared his throat. "This house... is it in west London by any chance?"

"Erm, yep. St Stephen's road – west 13. They collected a whole load of evidence, it was a notorious squat site so the police just packed everything up."

"When was the fire?" Asked Spence.

"August, 2005. Pretty soon after our victim washed up. I'll get the evidence sent over for first thing tomorrow."

"Well that's _good!_" Said Boyd, exaggerating heavily. "We've got somewhere!" He smiled happily – Grace's hiding something behind her back forgotten with this new lead, and the shirt having been passed to Stella anyway.

"Ok. First thing tomorrow I'll start looking at the new evidence." Promised Eve, hinting as she looked at her watch.

"I can hardly wait..." Said Boyd over his shoulder, walking out. Spence followed him.

Grace waited until the boys had gone before turning to Eve and Stella.

Eve looked at the two of them. "What?" In response, Stella tossed Eve the shirt. Eve looked at Grace, who smiled indulgently. "Oh..." Was all Eve had to say.

"See you tomorrow girls..." Said Grace, walking out.

There was a brief pause, followed by a spate of laughter. Stella smiled at Eve, who smiled back, stepping forwards and planting a light kiss on Stella's lips.

"How about that drink?" She offered. Stella nodded.

"Come and get me in five minutes." Said Stella. "I'll let you put your shirt back on first." She added, a tease of a smile playing around her mouth as she walked out the lab.

Eve looked at the shirt in her hands, laughed, and ducked behind a table to put it on.

- - -

"That was... that was really nice." Said Eve, truthfully, as Stella pulled up outside Eve's flat. And it had been. They had eaten, had a drink, enjoyed each other's company... plenty of flirting had ensued – which was hardly surprising given their record.

"Yeah," agreed Stella, softly. "It was."

"You want to come up?" Offered Eve, lightly. "For coffee." She added.

Stella hesitated. Then, after a moment's thought; "Ok. Just coffee."

"Just coffee." Confirmed Eve, as Stella reversed into a parking space, and followed Eve up to her flat.

- - -

The 'just coffee' sentiments lasted all of three minutes. Eve had shown Stella up to her comfortable and gently cluttered flat, had shown her the view from the small balcony that showed the thousands of winking, glinting lights of London, and had made two cups of coffee which sat, undrunk, on Eve's coffee table.

Stella, sofa beneath her and Eve's body above her, let out an open moan into Eve's mouth, as Eve pressed into her, kissing her, hard. Stella kissed back, pushing upwards, not about to be outdone. Now in an upright position, their legs around each other's backs, they both fought for the upper hand, both pushing, both playfully wrestling with their mouths, both eager to get the other one on their back.

Breaking away, her voice breathy, Stella gasped into Eve's ear; "Just because we nearly did before... well, twice... doesn't mean we should now..." Nonetheless, her fingers were at Eve's shirt buttons for the second time that day, her hands gladly sliding over the soft skin underneath.

"Oh... what does it mean?" Asked Eve, her lips now at Stella's neck, her warm, wet mouth pressing, following the line of the neck down towards Stella's collar bones.

"It means we have no self-restraint" replied Stella, attempting to focus on the words; head thrown back as Eve's hands found their way under her shirt, one finger hooking around the cup of her bra.

Eve paused, slowing her movements, now kissing gently back up Stella's neck until she reached her ear. "Got that right..." She murmured softly into it. "Bedroom?" She added, her voice low and coated with a _something _that almost drew a moan out of Stella right then and there.

"Please..." Was all she could say.


	6. Six, 'Philosophy'

_Chapter SIX – Philosophy_

"Morning," said Eve, as Stella emerged from her bedroom the next morning, dressed in the jeans she had been wearing the day before and one of Eve's v-necked t-shirts. It was a very pale blue with a low cut neck; exposing just enough of Stella's creamy skin to be sure of reminding Eve of last night all day long.

"Morning... Do you mind if I borrow this?" Asked Stella, indicating to the top as she walked over to the kitchen area and took the offered coffee from Eve's outstretched arm.

"Help yourself. You look good in it." She complimented, receiving a smile from Stella in return as she took a sip of coffee. "Do you want breakfast?"

"No, no, the coffee's fine, thanks." Stella looked around the room, appreciating for the first time the bright sunlight in the white-walled room, the light that cascaded in from the large windows on the only windowed wall, shining through the balcony and filling the room with light. "You've got great light in this room..." She said, turning back to Eve.

"You're glowing." Eve replied, simply.

"You too." Said Stella, looking at Eve properly, seeing the bright look in her eyes, the still slightly tousled hair, the hidden curve of a smile that tugged at the lips – all the old signs that pointed to just one thing.

"You must be that good." Grinned Eve, setting down her empty coffee cup and stepping forward.

"You too..." Smiled Stella, as Eve kissed her, tasting coffee and mornings and the memories of last night. "Work?" Said Stella, after a few minutes. Eve groaned.

"If we must."

"I'll drive."

- - -

"Morning!" Breezed Stella, as she sauntered into the office; smile on her face that she couldn't quite keep down.

"Morning." Came the two, almost identical, grunts from Spence and Boyd in return.

"Grace in yet?" She asked, sitting down at her desk and logging into her computer.

"No – have you seen Eve?" Asked Spence. "Her car was here but I couldn't find her."

"Um... I think I saw her come in a few minutes ago... maybe..." Replied Stella, as nonchalantly as possible. After an impromptu and lengthy kiss in Stella's car that morning in the CCHQ car park, Eve and Stella had taken care to enter the building separately, and as surreptitiously as they could manage.

"Ok, something's missing, something's not right – who's this guy, this guy she went off with?" Snapped Boyd, getting up and pacing around the evidence board.

"Mm, Herbert Bradley." Stella was ready, whipping out the fresh print-out and handing it to Boyd. She had requested the information last night, and it had just come through in an email. Boyd looked impressed, held the paper lightly.

"Still warm." He commented.

"Yep, Bradley owned a seedy nightclub from '99 to last year, when he sold it. He was charged with eighteen counts of tax evasion, some more of fraud and he even dabbled in prostitution." She said, the French accent making 'seedy' and 'evasion' sound nothing short of adorable. Boyd smiled.

"Busy guy." Quipped Boyd.

"Yep. He's serving ten years in Latchmere House." There was a pause. Stella cocked her head at Boyd, a lopsided smile on her face. "You can't think of a come-back, can you?"

"Well you hardly gave me much to go on!" He sighed, theatrically. "Foucault, tell me about this Foo-kault... Foo-kault? Foo-cow? What is it?"

"It's like 'fu-ko' – it's French." Said Stella, grinning at Boyd's pronunciation as Grace came into the room.

"Morning!" Called Grace, glancing at Stella, who blushed – just a little – remembering yesterday.

"I thought he was German? Morning." Interjected Spence, nodding to Grace as she sat down next to him.

Stella shrugged. "His name is French."

"His name is fake." Added Grace, causing Boyd to stop mid-thought.

"What?" He demanded loudly.

"It rang some very loud bells so I went home and looked it up. Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, he died in the 80s. Wrote some very interesting things – you've never heard of him?" She asked, registering Boyd's blank expression.

"No." He sighed, sitting down. "So that's a dead end."

"Not quite." Replied Grace. "This faux-Foucault probably had his connections with the international study scheme – he knew lots of students, he provided a house where they could go to drink and do drugs – he was probably someone connected to the scheme."

The information was received into silence, as Boyd sat there digesting it. The silence was interrupted by Eve, who came into the office – exactly the same smile as Stella had on her face – and a triumphant bounce in her step.

"I've just found something really exciting!" She beamed at them for a second before professionalism took reign. She cleared her throat. "Would you like to come through?"

- - -

Eve pointed to a kitchen knife in a plastic bag, lying on the table. All eyes fixed on the knife expectantly.

"Your murder weapon." She announced, dramatically. Boyd shot her a look – deadpan.

"I thought she was strangled. The original report-"

"Yeah, well, the original report was wrong. See..." she moved over to the body on the other table, the team skuffling after her eagerly. "The week in the river damaged the top layers of the skin, especially the torso, so it was peeling and skin flapping and so on. So, the stab wound wasn't visible. The pressure on the neck _was _visible-"

"So she _was _strangled?" Interrupted Boyd.

"Well, yeah, but that wasn't what killed her. Yesterday I came across this nick on the ribs here..." She pointed to an x-ray that showed a small imperfection on one of the lower ribs. "... and I just tested some blood I found on the base of the knife by the handle, it's hers. The knife is the same size as the nick in the bone, so she was stabbed in the abdomen and the knife grazed the top of the vertebral rib."

"What about the face, was that pre- or post-mortem?" Asked Grace.

"Mm – after. My guess would be the near strangulation – we're talking close to passing out, lots of coughing – then knife, then face."

"Ok, ok, so what actually _happened_?" Demanded Boyd, waving his hands impatiently. "Paint me a picture, come on!"

Eve nodded. Tugging gently on Stella's arm (just because Stella happened to be the closest to her, of course), she positioned Stella in front of her.

"Ok, first, the killer went for the neck." She gently placed her hand flat over the base of Stella's neck, feeling the warm skin beneath her fingers and palm. "Original coroner's report recorded bruising on and skin damage – burst blood vessels and so on – on the back and upper chest, indicating sudden force."

"So..." Prompted Boyd.

"So, she was pushed backwards against a wall, this arm-" she pointed to the arm that was 'strangling' Stella "-pressed tightly on her chest." Eve walked forwards, guiding Stella back against a pillar, and using the opportunity to press into her slightly – as much as she dared – without the others noticing. Stella caught her eye, gave the ghost of a smile and her eyebrow twitched at Eve suggestively.

Eve focused on trying not to blush or smile too much; either of which might give her away. She released Stella, moving back.

"Then, the knife. She was probably hunched over from the choking and the shoving – could you hunch a little... thanks. Classic movement, knife trajectory slightly upwards, rammed straight in." She indicated, clasping her fingers around an imaginary knife, making the arm movements and leaving her hand on Stella's flat stomach just a second more than necessary. "My guess would be that while she was on the floor, you know, dying, she had her face stabbed repeatedly. Anyway, I have a primary crime scene which I will get to in a moment."

"Right but who _is _she?" Cried Boyd, exasperatedly, pointing at the body on the other table. "_Who_, Eve, can you tell me who – she – is?"

"We're working on that, sir." Said Spence, calmly, earning a loud sigh from Boyd in return.

"Why stab her in the face so many times?" Said Grace, thinking out loud. "If it was the stab to the stomach that killed her..."

"To make her unidentifiable? Christ Grace, I don't know!" Sighed Boyd.

"But it's so _angry_," she mused. "why did the killer have so much hatred and so little self-control?"

"Maybe he was out of his mind on drugs?" Suggested Stella.

"Maybe _she_ was having an affair?" Contended Spence.

"Oh yeah, it's always the woman's fault!" Retorted Stella lightly, rolling her eyes.

Eve looked at them all. "I do the hows. I can't do the whys."

"Well that's just useless..." Muttered Boyd, walking out.

"What's up with him?" Said Spence, as soon as Boyd was out of earshot. Grace shrugged, wandering out with Spence.

Stella pretended to follow them, hanging back slightly. The second the team had discarded their lab coats and gone, she slipped up to Eve, kissed her hard, quick and full on the lips, before breaking away and smiling as she left.

Eve grinned back, watching Stella go, and feeling rather pleased with herself.


	7. Seven, 'Sod CSI'

_Chapter SEVEN – Sod CSI... _

"Spence, with me, we'll go see Herbert Bradley. Eve can go off to that house, and Stella... where's Stella? STELLA!" Shouted Boyd.

"Here!" Said Stella quickly, catching up behind them. "Yes?"

"Stella, either go with Eve or find out who Fou..."

"Foucault."

"Who _he_ actually is." Finished Boyd.

Stella was about to volunteer to 'help' Eve, when she remembered that Grace was standing right next to her. Best to actually get some work done, maybe.

"I'll stay here." She said, finally.

"Right, I want to know who he is, where he is, why he gave a fake name, and what he was doing in this bloody house!" Ordered Boyd, tapping on the evidence board for effect before blitzing out of the room after Spence.

Grace smiled at Stella. "If you want to go with Eve..."

"No, it's fine – I'll give you a hand here and find out all there is to know about this... whoever he is." She replied, waving at the board and sitting down at the main desk.

Grace sat opposite her, started taking some notes from what Eve had told them. "How long has it being going on for?" She asked, casually. Stella felt a little blush flame beneath her cheeks.

"Oh, not long."

"Don't let Boyd catch you at it." Warned Grace – only half joking.

Stella considered it, shook her head. "Don't worry, not planning to..."

- - -

Herbert Bradley walked in his prison uniform with the air of a man who was used to walking in suits. He attempted to shrug the hand of the guard off his shoulder about six times, each time getting more and more jumpy, and when he finally got into the chair opposite Boyd he leapt straight back up again.

The guard stepped forward, but Boyd shook his head.

"It's fine. Can you give us a few minutes?"

The guard looked at Boyd and Spence, as if gauging their strength, and finally decided that Spence at least looked tough enough. Boyd looked at Bradley, who hardly looked like the type to get physical, but you never knew, and he was very, very twitchy.

"Could you sit down Mr Bradley?" He asked, firmly.

"What do you want?" Came the edgy reply.

"We're not here to charge you with anything, we don't care about the fraud, or the tax evasion. We're working on a separate case entirely." Boyd motioned to the chair. "Please, have a seat."

Bradley sat down, and Boyd slid him a photograph of Helga Kuhse. Bradley visibly twitched, started scratching his arms. Pinpricks of sweat broke out on his large forehead.

"You finding it hard inside, Mr Bradley?" Asked Boyd, casually. "We can put in a good word if you help us now. This is Helga Kuhse, yes?"

"She always told me her name was Helga Kuttle. But I found out afterwards. She sold me down the river and-" he leant forward, hissed across the table "-she stole my money. Ten thousand pounds in a safety deposit box – and more stashed away, she stole it, _she_ _stole it!_"

Spence glanced at Boyd. This man was obviously finding it hard to adjust to life inside – to put it nicely. He was probably on medication, and God knows what for. Mind you, that didn't mean he was talking total rubbish...

"Mr Bradley, if you give me details, I can make some calls and find out about that for you – better yet," negotiated Boyd, "my colleague DI Jordan here can do that while we chat. How about it?"

Bradley nodded. "You got paper?"

Spence hesitated before handing over a pencil, but Boyd nodded. Spence watched Bradley carefully as he wrote on a piece of paper – half expecting him to leap up and stab himself (or one of them) with the HB lead weapon. But he didn't, and Spence did his best to smile as Bradley handed him the paper.

"I'll be right outside." He said, and left.

"Can you tell me about Helga?" Said Boyd, quietly.

"What's there to tell?"

"Where did you meet?"

"Party. We had a one night stand, then two weeks later I get a call from her. She says she needs a place to stay. Three years later, she-"

"Sells you down the river and steals your money." Finished Boyd. Bradley nodded. "So she approached you?"

"I had called once or twice, we'd spoken and had lunch a couple of times, but that was about it."

"When was this?"

"Summer... June? I don't remember exactly."

"And you just... let her live with you?" Asked Boyd, slightly confused. "After a one night stand and a lunch or two?"

"She was very persuasive..." Bradley said, hinting. Boyd nodded.

"Did she ever mention anyone else? From before she came to live with you?"

"There were a few phone calls to a man named Michel. They argued a few times. In the end I told her that if she wanted to stay with me she would have to change her number and not speak to him again."

"And?"

"She agreed." Replied Bradley. Spence came back in. "Did you find out about my money?"

"I'm working on it." Said Spence.

"We'll be in touch..." Promised Boyd.

- - -

Eve, dressed in her navy forensic suit, surveyed the empty room of the house. It had been officially empty for almost four years, although the beer cans on the floor and sleeping bag in the corner of the front room suggested recent activity. That and the faint whiff of cannabis, the needles and the confetti of silver foil that littered the back rooms.

The front two rooms of the big Victorian house were relatively clean – nearer the road and exposed – the kitchen had been blocked up and upstairs looked slept in but not lived in, so Eve had started with the one large back room.

You could fit a huge dining table in here... she mused to herself, as she sprayed small test patches of the floor with luminol, waited a few seconds. Most of the floor shone like a bright blue beacon, patchy and weak in places, stronger than others. And only half of it had been cleaned – in most places there were dark brown patches that had soaked deep into the wood.

Eve frowned. The place was probably contaminated to hell and back. She would have to start with the patches that looked most like a knife attack...

Kneeling at her kit, Eve picked up her phone. One new message. Stella. She smiled.

_'How's it going?'_

_'I sprayed the luminol and it looks like a rave in here...'_

_'Lots of blood?' _Came the quick reply.

_'And god knows what else'_

_'Ew... What you doing tomorrow night?'_

Damn; tomorrow night was CSI. _'I don't know... All new CSI on five you see...' _She texted back, smiling to herself.

A pause.

_'Miss it.'_


	8. Eight, 'Kiss It Better'

_Chapter EIGHT – Kiss It Better?_

"What have you got Stella?" Demanded Boyd, the second he walked through the doors of CCHQ. Stella, feeling quite proud of herself with what she had found, leapt up from her desk. Boyd hadn't finished. "Who is Michel Foucault?"

Stella's face fell. "Well... we... still don't know – but-" she added, before Boyd had a chance to open his mouth to bellow or berate, as he was sure to do, "-I think I know who our victim is."

Boyd looked at her for a long moment. Her 'last-night' smile (which he had noticed had been firmly in place since that morning, and had shifted for less that three seconds in the entire day) was still hovering around her mouth. "I'm listening."

"Good." She beamed at him. "I ran every record of every female student – this scheme," she indicated the board, "and all others operating in London at that time against the list of partial names that Spence gave me from Peter Abelard."

"And?"

"One student who cropped up on both lists didn't complete her course; she 'dropped out' a week before the body turned up in the river." Stella picked up the board pen and took off the lid. "Hannah Adrent."

Spence snapped his fingers. "Hannah something... Abelard said..."

Stella nodded. "Michel Foucault's girlfriend."

Boyd nodded slowly in the silence. Finally, he spoke. "But who... who is Michel Foucault? THAT'S the question... the question that we have to answer – Grace?"

Grace, having hung up the phone in her office, came out right on cue.

"Maybe I can help with that. I just spoke to Hannah Adrent's parents, in Germany. They're flying over as soon as they can-"

Boyd groaned. "You deal with them then, I don't want grieving parents..."

"Oh show some sympathy Boyd!" Snapped Grace.

Boyd turned, open mouthed to Spence. "Can you believe she talks to me like that?"

"Anyway, they said that they had always assumed she had gone off with her much older boyfriend – a Michel _Ferber_. They had always thought him a bad influence." She finished, sitting down.

"Well maybe they were right..." Supposed Boyd quietly.

"Ferber... Ferber... Here," said Spence, tapping his screen. "Worked at Thames Valley University. Would have had access to the students and it's the right area. I've got an address here..." He hit print, and the machine whirred into life, spewing out details and a photo of Michel Ferber, which Boyd snatched up and tacked onto the board.

"Michel Ferber... Bring him in."

_- - - _

Michel Ferber looked younger than his twenty-nine odd years, but his thin brow and steel grey eyes gave him an unnatural coldness. His face was gaunt, his teeth straight, and his hair jet black and sleeked behind his ears.

Stella parked the car on the road opposite the small and busy café, where Ferber was serving and clearing tables in the sunny, neatly fenced off outside. Stella cut the engine, pocketed the keys.

"That's him." Confirmed Spence, glancing at the photo on the dashboard.

"Softly softly?" Asked Stella.

"Yep." Said Spence, getting out his side.

They stepped out of the car, crossed the road. Stella approached Ferber as he picked up a few plates from an empty table.

"Michel Ferber?" She said politely, pulling out her badge. "DC Good-"

She couldn't even finish her sentence – whirling round and flinging the plates at Stella – he bolted, pushing a table over as customers around him yelped and shouted. Standing on a chair and leaping over the cloth fencing, Ferber started sprinting down the road, Spence giving chase.

Stella – not noticing the cut on her bare arm from a flying shard of large ceramic plate – tore back to the car, snapping on the light and siren and flooring it down the road.

Ferber bolted down a side alley, knocking a dustbin into Spence's path, who hurdled over it. Stella, in the car, swore as they went down the alley, and sped up – swinging the car around the block and slamming on the brakes at the other end of the alleyway and springing out of the car just as Ferber reached the alleyway opening.

Ferber, on registering that he had a police officer in front of him and one behind him, hesitated. It was only a split second, but it was enough for Spence to leap forward and take him down in a spectacular rugby tackle, landing right at Stella's feet.

"Nicely done." She said, dryly, handing a heavily breathing Spence a pair of handcuffs.

"You're bleeding." He panted, hauling a swearing Ferber up and slamming him against the car.

"Oh shit..." Remarked Stella, looking down at her arm and peeling a piece of lettuce out of the fairly impressive gash. "He threw a bunch of plates at me..."

"I have rights!" Spat Ferber.

"Not after assaulting a police officer you don't." Growled Spence.

- - -

Stella came back into CCHQ to find Grace and Boyd bickering gently over nothing in particular.

"Spence has him in room one." She said, through gritted teeth as she pulled the blood-soaked towel away from her arm to inspect the damage.

"What did he do, pull a knife?" Asked Boyd, frowning and coming to have a look.

"No – a set of plates..." Boyd looked confused. She mimed the instinctive holding up of arms to protect the head. "He threw them and they broke all over me. It's fine."

"Do you need Eve to take a look, she just came back..." He said, heading towards the exit to go interrogate.

"Um, actually yeah I think I'll do that." Said Stella, trying to ignore Grace's raised eyebrow.

"Ok, and I'll get some DNA off this Ferber. Grace!" Shouted Boyd on his way out. Grace looked pointedly at Stella's arm as she left.

"Oh, that is bad." Said Grace sympathetically.

"Um, yeah!"

"Better go and get it seen to." Smiled Grace as she left.

Stella smiled back, and headed over to the lab.


	9. Nine, 'Detective Work'

_Chapter NINE – Detective Work_

Eve was looking at a large floor plan she had drawn up of the house, drawing on the blood stains that had come back a match with the victim. She glanced over at the computer, which was analysing and separating some of the other samples she had collected. So far, there had been seventeen different strands – most of them irrelevant.

She heard the hiss of the door. "Hey."

"Hey, did you- oh my God!" Exclaimed Eve, turning and catching sight of Stella's arm.

"It's fine, it's fine. Looks worse than it is." Said Stella, as Eve gently pulled back the towel and looked at the three inch gash on Stella's forearm.

"What happened? Here, there's a first aid kit somewhere... here." Eve rooted around in a cupboard, bringing out a white box with a bright red cross on the lid. She took out an antiseptic wipe, dabbing at the edges of the cut. "It's not too deep... what on earth did you do?"

"We went to get Michel Ferber, the guy-"

"Yeah, yeah I saw the board. Did he attack you?" She asked, raw concern in her voice.

"There were twenty of them, with machetes and guns and everything. I drop kicked most of them, and one just managed to swipe out..." Lied Stella. Eve laughed – she wasn't having any of it.

"And this piece of ham?" She asked, pulling the offending thin scrap of meat from Stella's elbow, where it had attached itself with a dribble of salad dressing.

Stella couldn't think of an explanation – plausible or otherwise – so just smiled and let Eve gently stick on a butterfly suture, and wrap a white cloth bandage around her arm; pinning it secure and admiring her handiwork.

"Very heroic." Eve commented.

"You didn't kiss it better." Protested Stella.

"Are you seven?" Eve was incredulous, but Stella knew she was only teasing. "How about I kiss you better instead?"

"You're incorrigible... You know that?" Murmured Stella, her lips humming against Eve's, her hands coming up to brush through Eve's hair.

"Yeah? And what are you going to do about it?"

- - -

The second Spence and Boyd walked into the interrogation room, Ferber jumped off his chair.

"I know my rights, you can't keep me here!"

"Sit down." Commanded Boyd.

"Are you his boss? He tackled me! He could have broken my legs!"

"SIT DOWN." Roared Boyd.

Ferber snarled, but sat. Boyd pulled out a chair, unbuttoning his jacket and sitting down with Spence.

"Hannah Adrent. Remember her?" Boyd was met with silence. "Helga Kuhse, Peter Abelard... ringing any bells?" More silence. "No? Ok. Spence, take his DNA and we'll do this later, I don't have the time to waste..."

"You're not having my DNA." Said Ferber, his eyes warily watching the plastic capped cotton bud in Spence's hand.

"Oh no? You assaulted a police officer, and you're my prime suspect in a murder inquiry, I suggest you cooperate." More silence. "You speaky English? Spence, go look up this guy's work papers with immigration will you?"

Ferber scratched his neck desperately. "Ok, ok. I'll give you my DNA."

Boyd smiled and stood up, watched as Spence swabbed the man's mouth, capped it, and handed it to Boyd. "Now go check his work papers."

- - -

Stella quickly smoothed her hair and straightened her clothes before she walked into the observation passage to find Boyd standing and watching Michel Ferber through the window. She came and stood next to him, and he handed her the cotton swab without even looking.

"He's a nasty piece of work." He commented quietly. "How's your arm?"

"It's fine, it's fine." She held up her arm with the neat white bandage.

"Sir-" Spence walked in, holding out a file. "-here's his details." Boyd took the file, and Spence looked at Stella's arm. "How's your arm?" He echoed Boyd's exact words.

Stella smiled. "Fine."

Boyd looked up from the file, then took the swab from Stella's hand and swapped it with the open file. He handed the swab to Spence. "Take that to Eve, Stella come and help me make this guy talk... Wave your bandage around, tell him you'll send him to prison for that and for God's sake, pretend it hurts will you?" He implored – waving Spence away in one direction and motioning for Stella to come in the other. Boyd opened the door for Stella, and waited for her to sit down opposite Ferber before he followed her.

Boyd sat, and took his time looking at the file that Stella placed open in front of him. He looked pointedly at Stella's arm. "Did it need sutures?"

"Yes, Sir. Might need stitches too."

"Oh dear. See, that means your bail will be much, much higher than if you had assaulted any other person." He told Ferber. "And it means we can charge you and hold you here for a nice long time." He smiled.

"What do you want?" Muttered Ferber. "I haven't done anything."

"Apart from assaulting a police officer..." Boyd flipped through the file. "And not going back to Germany when you were supposed to."

"Don't forget murdering Hannah Adrent." Reminded Stella. At this, Ferber banged his hands down on the table.

"THAT WASN'T MY FAULT!" He screamed.

Boyd's face was impassive. "But you did kill her."

"No! No... no..." Ferber leaned right back in his chair – as if trying to get as far away from Boyd and Stella as possible – and ran his fingers through his hair desperately.

"Then what happened in that house, where you all were – you, Peter, Helga and Hannah," Boyd counted them off on his fingers, "and God knows how many others. What was it – did you all take too many drugs? Was it all a bit freaky? COME ON!" He shouted.

Ferber said nothing, just shook his head.

Boyd's face was like stone. "I suggest you decide to talk soon, or things are going to get very, very hard for you." He stood, and left the room with Stella.

Once on the other side of the glass, Boyd let out a long sigh.

"He just doesn't want to talk, does he? I'm shouting and threatening and he just... doesn't talk."

"He's guilty as sin." Replied Stella.

"Yeah. But how do we prove it?" He looked at her. "And will you stop bloody smiling!"

"What?"

"Jesus..." He mumbled something else about 'youth' and 'relationships' and left. Stella caught sight of herself in the reflection of the glass, saw the smile that threatened to curl its way around her mouth at any and every opportunity. She laughed, and followed Boyd out.

- - -

"Stella's being incessantly cheerful and it's getting on my nerves – Grace, deal with it will you..." Snapped Boyd as he walked into the office.

"It's not my fault!" Laughed Stella, close behind him, coming in and sitting down next to Grace. "Anyway, Michel Ferber is guilty – I'd bet my month's pay on it."

"Who says you're going to get paid?" Demanded Boyd, pouring himself a coffee and pacing up and down.

"Yeah, why are you so cheerful?" Asked Spence.

Stella blushed. "Since when was being cheerful a crime?"

"It is when you don't tell me about it." Said Spence, playing the friend card. Stella raised her eyebrows incredulously.

"I never tell you anything about my love life – what makes this time any different?"

Boyd was quick. "So it _is_ something to do with your love life?"

"Oh, shit." Cursed Stella. She hadn't meant to say that.

Eve walked in, on her way to grab a coffee.

"Stella's got a new boyfriend." Informed Boyd, knowingly.

"I don't h-" Protested Stella, vaguely aware that Grace was sitting next to her, neither contributing to nor saving her from this relentless onslaught. Honestly, it was like being interrogated.

"She's been smiling all morning." Added Spence, cutting off Stella's protests.

"Oh, really?" Asked Eve, innocently, trying not to burst out laughing. "What's he like?"

"Don't you have DNA to test?" Replied Stella. Eve smiled, sat down comfortably in a chair.

"It's running through the computer – I have a few minutes to kill." She shrugged, nonchalantly.

"So take a cigarette break!"

"Trying to quit, actually..."

"You didn't answer her question," probed Spence, grinning. "What's he like?"

"Well he must be good if she's been smiling all morning." Quipped Eve – taking the chance to indulge in some self-flattery.

Grace finally spoke up. "I thought we had a case to solve?"

A silence met her rather large hint. Boyd looked at his watch. "We can let Ferber sweat for a little longer..."

Spence made a noise of agreement, and turned to Eve. "What about you, seeing anyone?"

"Yeah, actually. Early days but..." She caught Stella's eye. "I like them a lot so... we'll see." She smiled at Boyd and Spence and got up. "Anyway. DNA results – see you later."

"And I will get back to work. Sir." Said Stella, curtly, jumping up and going to her own desk.

Boyd and Spence exchanged a glance.

"Nice try." Grinned Boyd.


	10. Ten, 'The Bet's On'

_Chapter TEN – The Bet's On_

It had been less than ten minutes, and already Boyd was bored. He was now tapping out idle rhythms on the board with the pen, then wandering over to the screen that showed Ferber, sitting in the interrogation room.

Then back to the tapping.

"He's guilty Grace! I know he is."

She sighed. "What about motive? Why would Michel Ferber want to kill his girlfriend?"

Stella came over, perched on the desk, and Spence came over to sit down. Boyd had no answer. He just shrugged.

"I still think she was having an affair." Said Spence, stoically.

"With who? We've been through her phone bills, her stuff..." Countered Stella.

"With Abelard." Replied Spence.

Stella scoffed. "Yeah, right. Ferber is much better looking than Abelard, nobody would do it that way round. Not that either of them are my type." She added.

"Oh? What is your type?" Interjected Boyd, raising one eyebrow a fraction.

Stella rolled her eyes. She wasn't getting into that again.

Somewhat appropriately, Eve walked into the room at that very moment.

"Where's Helga Kuhse now?" She asked, urgently.

Grace flicked back through her notes. "Probably still in the country, but not for much longer – why?"

"I found a partial print that belongs to her on the knife that killed Hannah Adrent." Replied Eve.

"Well she was in the house, she could have used the knife before..." Said Boyd. Eve shook her head.

"The print was made in blood – Hannah's blood. And there's something else," she added, crossing over to the board and pointing, "I ran the DNA sample I just got from Michel Ferber against all the various fluids and traces I found in the house. He was having sex with both Hannah _and _Helga. But so was Peter Abelard."

"Could it be some sort of orgy?" Asked Grace, Eve shook her head.

"The samples came from different rooms, and were probably left at different times."

Spence looked over at Stella. "Told you she was having an affair."

"But so was he!"

"Well maybe he had double standards – did he kill Hannah Adrent?" Snapped Boyd.

"His prints were also in the knife, in her blood, in a way that suggests he held it as she was stabbed – yes."

"Stella, get on the phone and have uniforms pick up Kuhse and get her here." Ordered Boyd. Stella nodded, swung herself off the desk and went to her own. Eve followed and pulled up a chair to sit next to her. "Spence, with me, we'll bring Abelard in. I want all three of them to explain to me why the forth-" he pointed at Hannah Adrent's smiling photo in the centre of the board "-is now dead." He marched out with Spence.

Grace got up to go to her own office, leaving Stella – already on the phone – and Eve alone in the main office. She'd keep half an eye on them through the door though...

- - -

"Done. They're on their way to Kuhse's hotel." Said Stella, putting down the phone, and checking to make sure they were alone. Seeing that Grace was safely in her office, she slapped Eve on the arm – only half playfully.

"Ouch!"

"I cannot believe you did that earlier. It was like the... the Spanish Inquisition!"

Eve grinned. "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition." Then, as Stella's face was blank; "Never mind. You want to keep it deathly private then?"

"Yeah. I mean," Stella lowered her voice automatically – even though there was no chance of Grace hearing her, "Spence is a friend. I'm going to have to tell him at some point. But I don't want Boyd to think it would upset the team, or for him to never trust us in a room together or anything. I like spending time with you."

"Even if it's collecting hair samples or looking through microscopes?"

"I've learnt a lot from all you've told me! You are very, very clever..." She breathed. Neither of them had been aware that they had been drifting closer and closer together.

Grace breezed out of her office, making them both jump back. "Hello girls! Just wanted a coffee!"

Eve caught Stella's eye, and smiled. "I'll be in the lab filling out paperwork."

Stella nodded, and surreptitiously watched Eve as she left. Then, when the distraction had disappeared behind the lab doors, she turned back to the files, and read through them for the hundredth time.

- - -

"Ok, so we've got Peter Abelard, Michel Ferber and Helga Kuhse..." said Boyd, pointing to each of the rooms in turn. He was fired up. Grace rolled her eyes. "... and Hannah Adrent." He indicated towards the lab, where the remains of Hannah Adrent lay on a wheeled tray inside a big silver cupboard. It was undignified and clinical, and it pissed Boyd off. "Spence, Abelard. Grace, you take Helga – I think she's _lying_, ok? I don't think she's telling me the whole truth because she didn't tell you about the house, and she 'forgot' to mention the name of the person she was having an affair with at the time..."

"Oh I agree. She's withholding the truth, but we don't know why that is Boyd."

"Well go find out! Stella – with me, we'll take Ferber."

"You mean I sit there pretending my arm hurts while you shout at him?" clarified Stella.

Boyd thought for a second. "Yeah."

"Ok."

- - -

"Helga-" started Grace.

"What's this about?"

"Hannah Adrent – do you remember her?" asked Grace, quietly. Helga shook her head. "Or her boyfriend, Michel Ferber..? We know you had an affair with him, Helga."

Helga hung her head. "If I tell you everything..."

"You should have told us everything at the beginning." said Grace, reproachfully.

"You must understand – we were all young. Apart from Michel. He told us he had a house, and drink, and drugs. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Who was there?"

"Peter, Michel, Hannah and I were all there for most of the time. Others came and went, but we were there when..."

Grace leaned forward. "When what, Helga?"

Helga sighed, looked away. A frown crept across Grace's features. She had been certain that this was an act, but maybe it wasn't – maybe there was something there.

"When it happened."

- - -

"That arm still hurt Stella?" asked Boyd, loudly, the second they walked through the door.

"Yeah it's-"

"JESUS!" snapped Ferber. "Enough already! What do you want me to say, huh?"

Stella raised an eyebrow, sitting down. "Sorry would be nice. And why you decided to throw the remains of two salad niçoise and a cheesecake at me."

Boyd chuckled, as Ferber sulked pointedly.

"I was trying to get away." he mumbled. Boyd sighed loudly in response.

"But WHY? Was it just because of the immigration thing or was it something else, was it something further back then that, hm? Did you think we'd finally caught up with you and Hannah Adrent – because you're right, we have."

"I didn't..."

"What, you didn't what?" Boyd was pacing now, pacing and shouting around the room. "You didn't kill her? Wrong – we have your prints on the knife that stabbed her in the stomach, and then repeatedly in the face, what we don't know is why – why would you do it?"

"Was it because of the affair?" asked Stella, before Ferber had a chance to protest again.

"She didn't know about the affair." replied Ferber, stoically, looking at Stella for probably the first time since he had gotten to CCHQ.

"We don't mean your affair – we mean _her _affair..." sighed Boyd.

"What?" snapped Ferber. "She was having an affair?"

Boyd and Stella exchanged glances. They were both thinking the same thing; Stella might just get her fiver back from Spence.

"Yeah, yeah, and so were you so it's a moot point – was it drugs?" Boyd gave an enormous sigh of exasperation, sitting down heavily. "I'm trying to understand why you would repeatedly stab your girlfriend in the face until she was unrecognisable, why you would purposefully plant Helga Kuhse's driving license on her, so that everyone assumed it was her – why would you do all that? Michel. Just... just tell me."

Michel Ferber stared at the table for a long time. Finally he looked up.

"Ask Helga Kuhse."

- - -

Spence leant back on his chair, and folded his arms. Peter Abelard was sitting across from him, practically crying. If he had been Boyd, thought Spence, he would have just reached over and thwacked him one – but he wasn't, so he didn't.

Eventually, Abelard calmed down.

"So you didn't know about the affair then?" said Spence, somewhat callously. Abelard shook his head.

"Why would Helga cheat on me? She said she loved me!" he wailed. Spence tried hard not to roll his eyes.

"It's been three years. You thought she was dead – be thankful." Abelard looked up, his eyes wide and shining, as if that was the last thing he wanted to hear. Spence cleared his throat. "You were having an affair too, with Hannah – Michel's girlfriend..."

"No!"

"We have DNA evidence that proves it."

"It was... one time... we were both drunk, and high..."

Spence frowned. The fiver that Stella had reluctantly handed over after losing their bet was crumpled in his pocket, and he wasn't sure whether a mind-addled one time constituted as an affair.

"Spence," came Boyd's voice through the ear piece. "A minute."

- - -

Spence joined Boyd and Stella in the observation room, watching Grace and Helga Kuhse through the glass. Boyd raised his eyebrows at Spence, who sighed reluctantly.

"It wasn't an affair, between Abelard and Hannah Adrent. It was just one time." he admitted.

"Ferber didn't even know. So hand it back." ordered Boyd, watching as Spence gave the five pound note back to Stella. "Fair's fair. Just don't tell Grace."


	11. Eleven, 'Answers, Steam & A Little Wit'

_Chapter ELEVEN – Answers, Steam, and A Little Wit _

"One day, I came back to the house and Hannah was gone. And so was my wallet. Michel said that she had left, but there was so much blood in one of the rooms. He was acting so strange. Most of the time he was on drugs, so I didn't know what had happened."

"And you never told anyone any of this before?" asked Grace, sceptical. Helga's story just seemed too simple, too easily explained.

"I never thought about it. I just wanted to forget... But Michel killed her. It's the only explanation. He did, didn't he?"

Grace skirted round the question. If Helga knew more than she was letting on – and Grace was certain that she did – then she had probably been there when Hannah had been killed. It didn't seem right – like why would Helga have left her wallet behind in a house full of junkies?

"Helga. We found your fingerprint on the knife that killed Hannah Adrent."

"That could have gotten there at any time!" protested Helga, suddenly angry.

"But not in her blood!" countered Grace.

Helga Kuhse made an exasperated noise. "That knife wasn't found until the fire _two months _later – how can you possibly think that was my fingerprint?"

"Fingerprints don't lie Helga, but people do. That knife was found behind a rotting wooden panel and -" Grace stopped suddenly. "How did you know about the fire, Helga?"

Helga blinked, replied just too quickly. "I heard it on the news."

"You heard about a little house fire – one room of one empty house – on the news?" There was no response. "And you knew, somehow, that they had found the knife?" Again, nothing. "It's impossible, Helga, unless you went back to look for it. To check if it had been found. Is that why-" Grace took out Michel Ferber's phone records for the time of the fire "-there are these three, unexplained phone calls to and from a phone box, near where you admitted to police that you had been living?"

"I didn't do anything! Michel killed her!"

Behind the glass, Stella frowned.

"Why did she leave the house?" she asked Boyd, quickly.

"To run off with Bradley the tax evasion man." replied Boyd, impatiently.

"No," Spence cottoned on, "that's _where _she went. But why did she go in the first place?"

Boyd's face registered understanding, and he nodded slowly. "Spence, what about that money, the money Bradley claimed Kuhse stole from him?"

"I spoke to the officers that handled his case – there's an estimated 28k that they can't find."

"So she could be behind it all!" exclaimed Stella. "She could have pushed Ferber to kill Hannah, then planted her driver's license, so that she could disappear, then rat on Bradley and take his money! She does a few years for not leaving the country when she should have, but less because she gave them Bradley, and then she has his money!"

"So it _does _always lead back to the woman." quipped Spence, remembering what Stella had said before.

"But more often or not in a good way." she replied, with a wry smile. Her thoughts, of course, had gone straight to Eve. Not that that was a bad thing.

Boyd leaned over, switched the microphone over to loudspeaker.

"Grace, Ferber has told us everything. We're going to arrest her for conspiracy to commit murder." he flicked the switched, and watched as Helga Kuhse became visibly panicked. He glanced at Stella and Spence. "What? I'm allowed to lie."

"What did he mean by that?" snapped Helga, as Grace calmly closed up the file in front of her. Of course, Grace knew that Boyd was bending the truth – she could tell from his voice – but Helga Kuhse didn't know Peter Boyd as well as she did.

"He meant that we can now arrest you for conspiracy to murder – just like he said." she replied.

"But I didn't kill her! Michel killed her!"

"But you told him to, didn't you Helga?" said Grace, quickly.

"Yes, but I didn't think he would actually do it!"

"And afterwards?"

"I gave him my wallet, I told him to dump the body, but she was already dead! There was nothing I could do!"

Grace looked sadly at her, thinking of Hannah Adrent's parents, who were at this moment coming off a plane and heading towards CCHQ, where Grace would meet them, and have to explain what their daughter had gotten caught up in.

Not saying a word, Grace simply got up, and left the room.

- - -

It was quiet at CCHQ. The sudden revelation about the many layers of Helga Kuhse had been dampened slightly by the arrival of Hannah's parents immediately afterwards. Grace was with them now; she had suggested they go for a walk. Stella didn't know where Grace would take them, but it would be better than down in the cold case basement – with large photos of their mauled child pasted up on the evidence board for all to see.

Stella, feeling something near her feet vibrate, reached down and picked up her phone.

_'Come to the lab a sec' _read the text – from Eve, naturally. Stella glanced around the office. Boyd was safely tucked away in his office, and Spence was dealing with Ferber and Kuhse – which meant the only witness to her slipping away would be the paperwork on the desk.

She'd take her chances.

She hit the button for the lab door, and stood there smiling as it whooshed open for her. Cute noise.

Eve appeared from the side, grinning. "You still need to wear a lab coat, even if you're just here to flirt with me." she commented playfully.

Stella laughed. The door hissing closed again in front of her, she went to get a coat.

"You asked me here..." she said, having pulled on the lab coat and tried a second time.

"I wanted to ask you what you were doing tonight." said Eve, slipping her arms around Stella, and kissing her gently.

"Paperwork." replied Stella, returning the kiss. "Until late..."

"Well how about I stay here, until late, and any time you need a break, you come and see me, and I'll do what I can to alleviate the stress..." murmured Eve, undoing Stella's lab coat and slinking her hands up underneath Stella's t-shirt. Actually, it was her t-shirt, but Eve had already decided that Stella looked better in it.

"Mm... you would do that, for me?" asked Stella, her eyelids fluttering shut as Eve traced her fingers along the hem of her jeans – skimming over the slight gap between her hip bones. That spot... was just so sensitive. Eve had found that out last night – how the softest pressure on Stella right _there _would have the greatest effect.

"Yeah..." purred Eve in reply, undoing Stella's jeans and sliding her hand down into them, fingers first, gently exploring, feeling the heat radiating off Stella. "... you want to know what else I would do for you?"

"What?" gasped Stella, as Eve's fingers teased a small gap open between the edge of her underwear and the source of all this heat, the wetness that Eve was somehow managing to produce from her.

Eve didn't answer the question with words. Instead, she smiled, and began her teasing. She ran one finger along Stella's pussy, feeling it grow wetter, feeling Stella's body quiver. Eve started a rhythm, the strokes regular and even, each one going a little further, and a little further inside Stella, until she slipped two fingers into her. They slid in so easily, and Eve felt the wet inside of Stella react to her touch.

Stella moaned – deeply and openly – something that made Eve feel her own pussy grow wet, matching Stella's. But this wasn't about her. She wanted to pleasure Stella, right there, in her lab, so that every time Stella came in for work or otherwise, she would remember it.

And so she did.

- - -

Even after a fantastic distraction, Stella was finding it easy to get back to all the work she had to do. The fact that she had promised herself another of such distractions after getting half way through was making her get through it at a surprising speed.

She was alone in the main office, filling out the paperwork on Ferber when Boyd opened the door to his office, and stood there watching her. She didn't turn around, but she could feel his eyes on her neck, and spoke without looking up.

"What do you need, sir?" she asked, casually, turning over the page.

Boyd chuckled quietly. "A lot of things." Stella gave a little laugh in reply, so he wandered closer, pulling up a chair. "You should call him."

"Who?"

"Your Mr Right."

"Who? Oh – right." she smiled to herself, thinking that Boyd didn't see it. He had – but had attributed it to different reasons.

"He is..." Boyd hesitated. "He is, you know, _good _though, isn't he?"

"Very." replied Stella, trying not to smirk at the thought of a very, very good Eve right across in the lab. Then again, Boyd probably meant a different sort of good; a 'good for you' kind of good.

Which, on reflection, Eve probably was too.

"What's his name?" asked Boyd suddenly.

"Why do you ask?" she didn't mean to be so cagey, but it was hard to judge how much – if any – of the truth she wanted to give.

"Let me run a background check on him." answered Boyd, bluntly and truthfully, as if that was what he did with all his team's courters.

"No! Don't be ridiculous!" cried Stella, laughing – although she was touched at his protectiveness.

Boyd sighed. "What's his first name? Just so as I know..."

Stella thought quickly; weighing up her options. She could tell him. Maybe. At least part of it – that it wasn't exactly a _Mr_ Right. That way he'd probably be too embarrassed or taken aback to bring it up again. Then again, it might also make things very difficult, and awkward, and that was the last thing she wanted.

"Steve." she settled on, finally. "First name's Steve."

It was close enough.

_END. _


End file.
